New show, old problem

The New York Times has a review by Brian Stelter of the new show The Wanted, coming this month on NBC:

A production company thinks it has found a dramatic new television format for the so-called age of terror: conducting international manhunts for suspected terrorists and war criminals, filming them, and selling the finished product to television networks around the world. Its first bidder is NBC News. In just under a week, NBC is expected to introduce the series, The Wanted, which has already attracted criticism because of the collaboration between the journalists and the former government operatives they work with. Soon the series may go worldwide: on Monday a distribution company, ShineReveille International, said it had acquired the series for foreign distribution. The series has been criticized by some as an extension of To Catch a Predator, the Dateline NBC franchise that showed police officers and journalists working in concert to catch possible sex offenders when they tried to meet minors. Some have even pre-emptively labeled the series To Catch a Terrorist. Last winter the Department of Homeland Security warned that NBC’s pursuit of a Maryland college professor on genocide charges could hurt the ability of law enforcement officials to enact actual, as opposed to televised, justice.
But NBC and the producers have brushed aside those concerns. NBC has called The Wanted a “groundbreaking television event” that would show an elite team of investigators pursuing accused criminals living in the open and avoiding justice. An online promotion for the program suggests that it will have cinematic qualities, including sweeping shots from helicopters and a command center for the team. In a mostly low-rated season of summer programming, the ratings for “The Wanted” will be closely watched after it has its premiere on Monday at 10 p.m. Eastern time. A second episode is scheduled one week later; four more episodes have been filmed.
“The truth is the real weapon in this redefining news series that follows a Navy SEAL, a Green Beret, and a dedicated reporter as they hunt down war criminals and terrorists from around the world,” the production company, Echo Ops, says in its promotional materials.
The Green Beret and the member of the SEALs are retired. They are cast members who conduct surveillance and hold mock intelligence briefings on the program, alongside Adam Ciralsky, an NBC News producer, and David Crane, a former chief prosecutor of an international war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone. Mr. Crane praised the series for tackling cases of possible criminals who are “living normal lives under the protection of a domestic law and are trying to avoid justice.”
“We’re just here to seek justice for people that have been so victimized by international terrorists,” Mr. Crane said in a telephone interview on Monday.
It is that “we”— the cooperation between the former intelligence officers and NBC News— that has raised red flags among a number of veteran journalists, including some within NBC. They say they find it troubling that The Wanted blurs the boundaries between government agents and supposedly impartial journalists. Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, asked simply, “Is this supposed to be journalism?”
Mr. Ciralsky, a former CIA lawyer and 60 Minutes producer, has worked for more than a year on the series. On the program he is repeatedly visible during the televised manhunts, saying on camera during one of the stakeouts, “I have eyes on him from the back.” The documentary filmmaker Charlie Ebersol, son of Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Sports, is an executive producer alongside Mr. Ciralsky.
Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said she was stunned that NBC would use some of the same tactics that led to the harsh criticism of the Predator series. One of the accused sex offenders committed suicide as the police and cameras approached his home in 2006; NBC settled a lawsuit from the man’s family last year. Ms. Kirtley said that when she first learned of the new program, she “thought it was something that The Onion was doing as satirical summer silliness,” referring to the satirical newspaper. She said she worried that Mr. Ciralsky would be perceived not as a reporter but as a government representative. The series could “play into the hands of those who say that there is no such thing as independent journalism in the U.S., that everybody who’s working abroad is working in concert with the U.S. government,” she said. Mr. Crane said he believed it was very appropriate for Mr. Ciralsky to work hand in hand with the former intelligence officers. “It’s a team effort,” he said.
By licensing the program from Echo Ops, NBC may be able to sidestep some of the legal and ethical questions that followed To Catch a Predator. An NBC News spokeswoman said that The Wanted followed the news division’s ethical guidelines to the letter.
The network declined requests to interview the executive producers of The Wanted on Monday. But Mr. Ciralsky told The Associated Press, “The people who’ve called it To Catch a War Criminal, they’ve never seen the show.”
David Corvo, an executive producer at NBC News, said in a news release that “we hope this program sheds light on an overlooked story.” NBC said the episode on Monday would follow Mullah Krekar, the founder of Ansar al-Islam, an organization that the United States government classified in 2003 as being a terrorist group “with close links to and support from al-Qaeda.” The network said viewers would be shown surveillance operations in the man’s neighborhood in Oslo. The next week, the team moves to Germany to follow Mamoun Darkazanli, a man suspected of providing logistical and financial support to al-Qaeda. Mr. Crane said the program highlighted “the worst of the worst”. NBC has said that the Maryland professor may be featured in a forthcoming episode of The Wanted. The Department of Homeland Security had no comment on Monday about the series.
The plans for worldwide distribution of the series by ShineReveille added another wrinkle on Monday. Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, had owned the Reveille portion of the company until this year. Elisabeth Murdoch, a daughter of the News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch, is the chairwoman of the Shine Group, ShineReveille’s parent company.
“We’re always on the lookout for high-caliber, cutting-edge programming that plays so well across international markets,” the distributor’s president, Chris Grant, said in a statement. “This gripping series, which takes viewers to the front lines of the war on terror, fits the bill perfectly.”